Batman Beyond, Season 2, Episodes 19-21
Episode 19: The Eggbaby
I guess there has to be one each cartoon series? An obligatory "ha ha, this plot is dumb, kids like dumb weird storylines, right?" Except this one is never quite as lubricous as a show like, oh... Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry or even Teen Titans can get, so it's just... kind of dumb. Basically, due to plot contrivances, Terry ends up with a simulated robotic baby (the titular 'Egg Baby') that he has to keep happy for Family Studies. Is that even a real class in American schools? Again, due to contrived reasons, Terry ends up bringing the Egg Baby along as Batman. Granted, said contrived reason is admittedly Old Man Bruce not giving two shits, which I think is actually the funniest part of the episode.
The villains in this one is a rather bland parody of a Golden Age villain or something; Ma Mayhem is huge, abusive and a mob boss, and she's got two sons, Carl and Slim. One's a thug, the other's a hacker. Oh, and they're only stealing jewels. The voice acting is pretty all right, but again, they're simply not enough to carry the episode either.
Anyway, Batman carries the crying robo-baby into a fight against a bunch of gangsters, and hijinks ensue. Oh no, the baby got left in the bad guys' truck, because Terry didn't have the sense to leave the baby in the car! Stuff like that. I'm not going too far to say that this episode is unwatchable, but this one and the Howard Groote one are easily on the bottom of the heap as far as this season's episodes go.
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Episode 20: Zeta
This... is an interesting one. If I didn't know that Zeta here would actually receive a spin-off show on his own, I'm not sure if I would've felt differently. I actually know about the Zeta Project, and that it's spun off of a character from Batman Beyond... I just didn't realize that the character appeared for a grand total of one time. That said, "Zeta" the episode is pretty memorable.
It's a nice build-up from the Synthoids that were introduced earlier in the season, because Terry and Max figures out that their teacher Ms. Martel is actually just reading from a textbook (or, well, Wikipedia some answers, I guess) to teach her class. Things get wild when Ms. Martel actually turns out to be capable of jumping around like a superhero and fight against a bunch of secret agents -- including the first appearance of NSA Agent Bennet. After rescuing the real Ms. Martel, Commissioner Gordon and Batman find out information that the synthoid is actually a rogue assassin robot called Zeta that was supposed to infiltrate a terrorist group, but went rogue and refused to take orders.
Love the design on Zeta, by the way, with how oddly bizarre his proportions are despite being humanoid, and the fact that he lacks a conventional face in his true form. That's pretty cool.
There's a pretty brilliantly-scripted scene when Max seems to be doing research on Zeta, and Dana enters the room with a somewhat more ominous music. Oh no, Max is about to be attacked by Zeta! There's a neat bit of deflection where it seems that Dana is actually Zeta in disguise when, well, it turns out that it's actually Max that is Zeta, and is using the guise of Max being a scatterbrained computer geek to cover up for some of her mistakes in mis-gendering a classmate. Terry figures this out quickly, though, because Zeta-Max doesn't actually know anything about Terry's secret identity.
As Batman and the NSA get ready to take down Zeta, Zeta himself is interestingly a lot more benign. Again, as someone who's watched and read a lot of sci-fi material, the idea of a robot (an assassin robot at that) going full-on Data and trying to express the human qualities of empathy and morality is an always interesting story to tell. Zeta keeps Max hostage, but isn't willing to hurt her, and even brings her sandwiches. Max even convinces Zeta to not kill, and Zeta drops all of the guns he stores under his robo-ribs into a trash can. It's kind of interesting, though, because Zeta does have a point that the whole world is literally out to kill him. And Batman swoops in, because to Terry's eyes, Zeta is a rogue murder-bot who just kidnapped his best friend. It's a pretty tense scene, but Zeta stops short of delivering a killing blow, and Batman ends up being convinced by Max that Zeta's cool.
...unfortunately, this means that the NSA becomes the new antagonists of the episode, and the scenes that follow are honestly pretty neat. I wonder if this episode got a higher action scene budget because they wanted this Zeta character to have a spinoff? Between Batman's gadgets and Zeta's pretty creative uses of his powers (he plugs in the factory's machines into his own body, which is cool) the fight at the factory is pretty cool.
Zeta's backstory is even pretty nice, even if we only get a quick telling of it -- when replacing an accountant who was only unwittingly associated with a terrorist cell, Zeta realized that living with the accountant's family and seeing his daughter ride a bike for the first time, Zeta ends up disobeying orders and refusing to deprive the man of his family. (Hiding out in a school, though, is a full superhero-comic hand-wave) Max comes up with the idea that Zeta could simply make his own face out of a combination of all the people he's copied before, which is neat.
Of course, the episode has to end in an action scene, and with a new face and a newfound freedom after removing the NSA's tracker, Zeta still ends up blowing his cover when a metal bar phases through his illusion. Despite Batman's assistance, Zeta gets brutally shot off of a building by the NSA agents and seems to have blown up and died. Except only Batman gets to see that the destroyed corpse was just an illusion, while Zeta himself is unharmed and heads off. Batman covers the location with explosives, essentially faking Zeta's death.
And... and it's certainly not the best Batman Beyond episode out there. I still think that the 'the high school allows me access to the NSA network without being traced' thing is kind of silly, but the interaction between Zeta, Max and Terry is told pretty well even if it's something I've seen many times in other sci-fi shows. Overall, a pretty solid one.
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Episode 21: Plague
Terry gets dragged into this when Stalker shows up and attacks Nelson. While it is questionable that Nelson survives being dropped from four stories high and slams down onto a car without even a broken bone, Batman ends up engaging Stalker, thinking that he's back to his games of hunting him down. Turns out that Stalker is working with Agent Bennet from the previous episode, which is interesting! Granted, I've never liked Stalker all that much in his first appearance, but it is interesting to see Stalker being played up as a full-on mercenary who is very much willing to lend his services to the NSA to hunt down a super-virus that Kobra is holding the city random for. There's even a cool flashback for Bennet as he sees the remnants of a small village that Kobra tested the virus on.
(Granted, Kobra One's speech about how the virus is spread by the touch of credit cards is a bit eye-rolling... even without the foreknowledge that a global airborne pandemic would hit the world a couple decades later, it's kind of baffling that they wouldn't use air or water as the obvious way to spread a pandemic. Even Joker did it in the 90's, Kobra!)
Anyway, it's a hero-teaming-up-with-an-antivillain episode, with Batman and Stalker sneaking into Kobra bases. Unfortunately Stalker's got a bit of a temper problem and blows their cover, knocking out the Kobra agents before Batman could do the sneaky-sneak and find out the information they need. They still do, because of Stalker's observational skills in picking out which one of the Kobra goons is the boss. Batman and Stalker track down Falseface and the rest of the Kobra agents, and Stalker ends up letting Falseface go in order to save Batman (and the vial) from being crushed by credit bars.
Kind of a cool episode, actually. I did like the many moving pieces in this one, I did like the multiple named villains from Kobra One to Falseface to (technically) Stalker. Again, I still think Stalker isn't the most interesting among Batman Beyond's rogues gallery, but it's still neat to see the writers do something different with him.
DC Easter Eggs Corner:
- Zeta would show up and be the star of his own personal spin-off series, "The Zeta Project", which lasted for 23 episodes.
- In "Zeta", the cities Dakota and Central City are briefly mentioned. Dakota is the hometown of superhero Static, whose cartoon series was in production during the development of this season. Central City, meanwhile, is the hometown of the Flash.
- Kobra, or rather, the Cult of Kobra, is a group of international terrorist introduced as a group of lunatics trying to bring in the Kali Yuga, an age of chaos. The titular Kobra is Jeffrey Burr, one of two twins that were abducted as children by the cult, and he had a mental link to his twin brother Jason Burr. The Cult of Kobra would face off against superheroes, among them Batman, Wonder Woman and the Outsiders.
- Falseface is original to Batman Beyond, but the name is similar to the False Face Society, the criminal organization that serves Batman's villain Black Mask.
I thought it was a little disappointing that the Zeta Series Zeta had a regular humanoid face.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the False Face is just a coincidence as its a common name and I've read the organization is all but forgotten now, similar to the Penny Plunderer.
I've never watched the Zeta series beyond the pilot, but if they've never actually capitalized on Zeta's unconventional design then it's a huge, huge crying shame.
DeleteI actually wonder if Black Mask's False Face society came first, or if the villain from the Adam West show (which I didn't know about while writing this) came first. Or if it's just a complete coincidence.
Yeah, when they reinvented Black Mask during the late 00's, they did basically get rid of the whole False Face society bit.
Maybe the other design shows up in some way or the change in design is explained, I never saw the whole series.
DeleteAdam West False facer came much earlier, Black Mask came from the mid 80s and the Red Skull palette swap design came in the 2000s.
https://about-faces.livejournal.com/31393.html
Read about the character here, no idea why DC promotes him so much, especially given there are more interesting mobsters?
That said, his relationship with his discontinued girlfriend, Circe, inspired Jack Napier's relationship with Alicia Hunt in Tim Burton's Batman.
Yeah, Adam West's False Face is most certainly the inspiration for all the other False Faces Batman fought.
DeleteI became a lot more familiar with him in the 'Red Skull, but black' era, especially when they promoted him heavily during the 2000's-era books like War Games and Under the Red Hood. He was pretty cool, even if the writers are clearly making him into a gigantic "wow, what a piece of shit this guy is, I hope he gets his comeuppance".
Black Mask, I think, is promoted heavily because he's visually distinct compared to a lot of the other 'just a dude' mobsters like Falcone or Thorne or Maroni. I like a lot of their stories, but at the end of the day they're just random dudes, and a lot of the more casual fans want to see characters that are more visually memorable, that can pop up a lot better.
Most audiences wouldn't remember Falcone or Mr. Zsasz from Batman Begins, or Maroni from Dark Knight (hell, until I looked them up, I didn't even realize Zsasz and Maroni showed up in the Nolan trilogy) and as a franchise DC and Marvel would want a lot of their characters to, well, be actually memorable, even if they don't have a particularly large role. But give a guy a very easily identifiable mask and/or a cool codename... and suddenly even if the character gets a small role they become so much more memorable to the audience.
Compare, say, Shocker from Spider-Man: Homecoming and Eric Savin from Iron Man 3. They fill more or less the same role as a generic second-act thug with blasty-blast powers, and their personality is pretty flat. But Shocker's got a very catchy codename and simply giving him a distinct appearance (lightning gloves) makes him so much memorable to the audience. Whereas Eric Savin is just some handsome dude that shoots fire whose name I had to google. From a merchandising standpoint and to make the characters more memorable in the general audience, I can understand why they're starting to promote characters like Black Mask a lot more.
Oh I'm not talking about those generic mobsters but Mobster SuperVillains, heck I only know/remember Thorne and only because I watched Two-faced introduction episode in DCAU recently.
DeleteI'm referring to Ventriloquist, Penguin and Two Face who are all mobsters that are more interesting visually and characterization then Black Mask.
Their appearances (ventriloquist dummy, a face monstrous on the left side, and looking like a old timey gentleman/penguin) are far more unique then just a human skull but black. Its dull too as there are plenty of monstrous and otherwordly designs they could go with a mask.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ApK8fYwc0zc/maxresdefault.jpg
Even with a Black Skull, there's plenty of ways to make a design interesting and not boring, like in the image above.
Even their henchmen are more unique then 2000s Black Mask's ordinary mobster henchmen, such as Ventriloquist's primary muscle thinking Scarface is an actual living human make them more distinct.
Black Mask doesn't have the mask gimmick with henchmen anymore nor any interesting depth or relationships, he's just a boring mobster that does evil for the sake of evil like every other villain in Gotham except without any style. Hence what I mean by boring.
By the way, did you read the link?
Ah, I see. My fault, then.
DeleteI do feel like everyone got uncomfortable using Ventriloquist because of how he's not even a criminal and is such a sad, mentally-ill man. B:TAS even points out just how terrible poor Arnold Wesker feels all the time, and he's one of the few villains to get a good ending. It's kind of hard to use Ventriloquist effectively without the hero coming off as "man, what a dick, he beat up a mentally ill person", which is why I think DC ended up going the completely wrong way and had him be replaced by a complete psycho that misses the whole appeal of the original Ventriloquist/Scarface duo. Handled by a good writer, Ventriloquist is a great villain! And I've seen him done so well both on page and on screen.
You're absolutely right, though, in that Two-Face and Penguin haven't had a whole ton of showcase in modern media. Two-Face got his huge limelight in Dark Knight, and I've always loved that Penguin was basically the main character of the Gotham TV show... but otherwise? I think due to their prominence in the Adam West TV show, the pre-Nolan movies and things like B:TAS Penguin and Two-Face still tends to show up a lot, but they tend to also only show up in like, huge montages of other Batman villains.
Oh, man, Rhino, wasn't Ventriloquist's main goon called? The B:TAS version, anyway.
Black Mask was great back in the 2000's simply because he's a evil psycho-monster that does pragmatic evil. I think Black Mask and Red Hood were so well-received back in the day because they were a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the other big bads of the time -- the writers flip-flopped on Two-Face a lot; and Penguin's whole deal is that he's a legitimate businessman that secretly deals out crime, which is a great character concept but not a particularly interesting main antagonist. War Games isn't super-duper great (the torture scenes do not age well at all), but pragmatic-psycho Black Mask worked for the story. It's just that after a long time being MIA, both War Games and the Catwoman story mentioned in that article you sent are the biggest introduction of Black Mask to a new audience.
But nowadays? I will absolutely agree that there's honestly not a whole ton that separates Black Mask from quite literally *every* other mobster in the superhero genre other than the mask, and while a skull mask is cool, it's just not quite enough. I'm honestly not sure why they dropped the "mask loon" gimmick, that'd make him a lot more interesting.
I'm definitely someone who prefers a lot of the more colourful villains (and heroes), for sure -- while there is certainly a place (and market) for more gritty, quasi-realistic superhero stories, I'm always a fan of the adaptations that go full-in on comic-book wackiness.
I definitely did read that article; it was a pretty fun trip down memory lane. I did remember that Black Mask's parents are like, evil rich people (which they don't do a whole ton with; and both Hush and the Court of Owls have the monopoly on evil-rich-folks now) but I completely forgot about the raccoon part of his origin. A very great little summary of Black Mask's early history for sure!
I think he was called Rhino, yeah!
DeleteThere are ways you can do "skull like" without just being a generic skull, I think.
You know who they should use again, Penny Plunderer.
https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Penny_Plunderer
Read about him and how seriously Gotham takes penny robbery, here!
I'm disappointed neither Brave and the Bold nor the Lego Batman included Penny Plunderer.
You gotta admit, a raccoon themed super villain would be pretty awesome!
Honestly, it's kind of a shame because the Penny Plunderer is the real source of that big-ass giant penny in the Batcave, right? But every other adaptation has always attributed that to Two-Face.
DeleteI do personally think that the 'realistic skull' bit has honestly been kind of played out -- in no small part due to many DC and Marvel characters having *actual* skulls for heads. The various Ghost Riders, Dormammu, Dr. Phosphorus, Mr. Bones, Blight, Atomic Skull...
And not to mention skull-masks! On top of my head, Red Skull, Taskmaster, modern Black Mask, Dr. Destiny... and that's just on top of my head.
Maybe in some parallel universe it's DC's Black Mask that is the well-known raccoon-themed character in the superhero media instead of Rocket Raccoon. He's a raccoon-man that wears a black mask.
There's also a goldmine of humor you can get out of a villain that is obsessed with the penny, I'm surprised no one has ever tried to use that in any way?
DeleteThere's so many skull characters already as you said. I think they should make it an otherworldly mask to make him stand out.
There's a lot of humour to be gotten out of a lot of Batman's Golden Age enemies. It's such a shame how everything has to be *so* god-damned serious nowadays in the comics. Though I am happy that in the last decade or so, someone realized how fucking hilarious a supervillain called Kite-Man is and used him a fair bit.
DeleteSkulls are an overplayed trope in character design, yeah, but it's also a very very effective one to instantly make a character cool!